Britain to ease visa restrictions for Chinese in bid to boost business

Mon 14 Oct 2013, 5:00 PM AEDT

Photo

Britain hopes by simplifying visas it will help attract more Chinese investment in the UK's power sector.

Reuters: Desmond Boylan

Britain has announced plans to make it easier for Chinese nationals to obtain visas in an effort to boost business between the two countries.

British finance minister George Osborne promised the new measures would help the tens of thousands of Chinese visitors hoping to visit Britain.

"Have announced new measures to simplify + speed up visa applications for visitors from #China," Mr Osborne, who is in China leading a British trade delegation, wrote on his official Twitter account.

"Good for tourism and British business."

Under the plan, Chinese tourists visiting the European Union using selected travel agencies will no longer have to file a separate application to visit Britain.

Britain is not a part of the EU's "Schengen Area" for border-free travel.

Business people will also be able to apply for a "super-priority" visa, which will be processed within 24 hours rather than a week.

Visas aimed at Chinese business executives

Mr Osborne also said the government was looking at a nationwide rollout of its "mobile visa service", which is currently being piloted in Beijing and Shanghai.

The service - aimed at business executives - enables visa teams to go to applicants' workplaces to collect their forms and biometric data.

Some 210,000 visas were issued to Chinese nationals in 2012, adding around $506 million to the British economy.

During his visit, Mr Osborne is trying to win over a Chinese government that has rebuffed Britain due to a meeting last year between Prime Minister David Cameron and the Dalai Lama.

I don't want Britain to resent China's success, I want us to celebrate it.

Britain's finance minister George Osborne

In a speech at Peking University, Mr Osborne said his visit was "the next big step" in UK-Sino relations and "there is no country in the West more open to investment - especially from China" than Britain.

"There are some in the West who see China growing and they are nervous," he said. "They think of the world as a cake - and the bigger the slice that China takes, the smaller the slice that they will get.

"I totally and utterly reject this pessimistic view. If we make the whole cake bigger, then all our peoples will benefit."

Britain should welcome China's success, he said.

"I don't want Britain to resent China's success, I want us to celebrate it. I don't want us to try to resist your economic progress, I want Britain to share in it."

At the weekend a deal between a Chinese construction group and British firms to develop a business district around Manchester airport, Britain's third busiest, was announced.

Meanwhile Britain's energy secretary Ed Davey said progress had been made in securing Chinese and other foreign investment in Britain's power sector, including atomic energy.

"It is really possible we will see massive Chinese investment, not just in nuclear but across the board," he said.

Mr Osborne is in China with London mayor Boris Johnson, who welcomed the visa plans.

"If it doesn't happen it's a missed opportunity and I don't want to see that business going to Paris," Mr Johnson said.